A Discursive Construct of Race in America: The Jim Crow Analogy and the Study of Mass Incarceration

Oakley Alexander Ramprashad
University of Victoria

Abstract

A very specific racial discourse defined the Jim Crow era in the United States. Many believed that overturning the laws of segregation and oppression that defined the Jim Crow era through court decisions and legislation would fundamentally change racial discourse in the United States. However, in the 1990s and 2000s, scholarship on the mass incarceration of black American men emerged which invoked the Jim Crow analogy. This scholarship claimed that the racial caste system that had defined the Jim Crow era had simply evolved and was as present as ever. The utilization of the Jim Crow analogy suggests that as a society, the United States has maintained the same racial realities since the turn of the 20th century. Scholars have set up opposing camps in favour of and against the use of the Jim Crow analogy. This paper attempts to explore the divide that has emerged in the study of mass incarceration.

a. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

b. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

c. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).